i am brewing a belgium wit beer, o.g at 1.054, and the first three days this beast bubbled like it had a mission. then for the next 4 not a drop of movement. dead. so i took a hydro read and it said 1.032, halfway to my end goal. so i shook the hell out of it,gently of course, didn't aerate the wert.. and it started to bubble. Yeah for me right, well then around a day later it stops its periodic bubbling. but 3 days later, 3 days shy of when i am to rack to a secondary fermentor, i see something. in the airlock , my friends, is a big wad of spent yeast and overareated beer hanging out in my airlock. What the F*(K is going on???? i am using wyeast 3944, i used 3 lbs of honey, i aeroated the hell out of it, and still this weirdness. is it ok to go into the next vessel? will this make a carboy bomb? can i get a what what?

There was a strain of yeast that I used once, not sure which one, that had a peculiar behavior. The yeast would produce such a dense head of foam at the top of the fermenter that the yeast would lift itself right out of the wort and sit on top of the foam. Fermentation would slow down until I rocked the fermenter to cause the yeast to settle back into the wort. Then activity would resume. Not sure, but it sounds like your issue is similar to mine. A few times a day I would shake some sense into my yeast and things turned out fine.

honestly man, thanks. i'm gonna shake the living heck out of it and hope for the best. now that you mentioned it, my yeast, when i took the hydrometre reading was sitting on top doing jackspit. ale yeast should dye a slow death at the bottom of my swill shouldn't it. thanks again man.

I used wyeast 1007 once. The foam/krausen was incredible, with huge daily flucuations in its levels. The yeast was mixed throughout the krausen as well, tremendous amounts of it. The ferment was very slow as well. Good luck.

Sorry... If you're fermenting in a carboy, you just drill a stopper to accommodate a length of 3/8" or 1" ID vinyl tubing, and submerge the end not in the stopper in a small pail of sanitizing solution. You usually have to weight the end down or use a clip to keep the open end submerged (which is crucial, BTW).

Quite a bit of the trub and foam generated at the top of the wort (the kraeusen) will be carried away from the wort through the tube.

I guess this will work to some degree if you're fermenting in plastic buckets, but the headspace there might be too large for it to work effectively (there's already (perhaps) enough room for the foam, so little will go down the tube).

Still, you did get enough to push it into the airlock, so at least that amount would have been carried off...

a status update for y'all. My buddy and I have gone to the secondary fermentor now. All of what you said seems to have happened and everyone's help has allowed us to continue. I'm proud to report that our Wit's end, belgium beer has finally gone to the secondary unscathed and as it happens at the correct reading too. Can anyone though tell me if i should expect a great change in gravity from beginning of secondary to bottling. i.e final gravity? there is only the yeast which escaped into the secondary (if that. So should i expect a huge drop, i mean i already am at the level i want... gulp, i am not making barley wine (hahaha). Thanks in advance to those that respond.